Tangled Lies - Anne Stuart

Another Anne Stuart series book with a really original plot. This one is a Harlequin Intrigue. Rachel Chandler flies to Kauai to meet with her brother Emmett who's been missing for 15 years. When she finally finds him it seems he is not as happy to see her and she is about seeing him and soon she starts to feel very attracted to him.

This could have been a very weird book, after all the heroine starts to have what seems to be incestuous feelings, however we are told almost from the start that Emmett is not her real brother and is only pretending to be due to a hidden agenda. That was a good thing!

"Emmett" is also very attracted to Rachel and eventually he tells her the truth. But how many authors would choose a hero who pretends to be at first a long lost brother? Not many but Stuart is known for her unlikely heroes. I thought this was one cold hero though, really focused on his hidden agenda.

I really liked the atmosphere in this book and Rachel was a interesting character. "Emmett" is a bit harder to like, I think revenge after 15 years is a bit unbelievable especially because the beginning of it was just an accident. I was enjoying the book very much but that final scene where Rachel tries to convince him not to go to the airport and what he tells her really annoyed me. I can deal with heroes being idiots in the beginning of the story, or when they think it's for the heroine's good or even when they are not well adjusted to society but this wasn't the case.

The solution of who is Emmett was well thought of and it surprised me. So I'm giving this one a B-. The cover of the book I read is not the one pictured here but it seems these older editions are hard to find online.